


Compromised

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: Savor The Suffering [7]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Banter, Concern, Coughing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dehydration, Dizziness, Fainting, Fever, Fluff and Mush, Hurt/Comfort, Mid-Canon, Nausea, Pace-Mates, Sickfic, Sleepiness, Stubborn Minibots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4362893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brawn is insisting that he's completely fine, even if no one suspects otherwise. Really, a night's recharge will make him good as new! Maybe. Hopefully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compromised

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to my characters (well, they're Hasbro's characters but you know what I mean), but when I get sick they get sick.
> 
> Pace: a company or herd of mules; in my headcanon, a family of Minibots, due to their charming natures.

Brawn realized something was wrong when the sky stood still and the ground began fluctuating. He pinwheeled slightly, leaning against the canyon wall for balance, and glanced around. The other Bots fighting seemed to have no problem getting around. Even the Cons looked alright as far as Brawn could see with his vision deciding to swim like it was. Clenching his teeth, he shuttered his optics tightly and when he opened them again, he found Bumblebee before him. When had the battle ended?

“Brawn,” the scout asked—quietly, as Optimus was talking to his officers, but no less concerned, “you alright?”

“Okay, Bee,” Brawn assured him with a brief smile. “Took a blow to the helm, but you know how I am.” In the back of his blurred thoughts he prayed that Bumblebee would forget the exact course of the battle so he wouldn’t know he was lying.

“Maybe you should get Ratchet to take a look at it,” Bumblebee advised.

“Ah, I’m fine,” Brawn insisted nonchalantly. “A night’s recharge and it’ll be good as new.”

“But if it isn’t—”

“Bee, stop it,” Brawn snapped finally. Bumblebee fell silent, holding his hands up placatingly and backing off. Brawn was quite thankful that he was the pace-leader and not anyone else; if one of the others had used that tone, Bee surely would have come to him and mentioned it. But come to think of it, if it had been anyone else, Brawn would have tracked them down and interrogated them about what the matter could be.

In any case, he was banking on that recharge being the trick.

—

Someone was saying his name somewhere. Brawn wanted to punch whoever it was and tell them to go away—though he wasn’t sure in which order—but his entire frame felt heavy and stiff and didn’t seem to compute the idea of moving.

“C’mon, Brawn, hurry up! You promised to put some time into sparring with me!”

Sparring. Sparring…Brawn searched his memory as it booted up, but sparring didn’t seem to be on the list. Finally, as much as he hated to, he pried his optics open and found Cliffjumper leaning down, frowning at him.

“’m fine,” Brawn said unintentionally.

“Never said you weren’t,” Cliffjumper replied, tugging away Brawn’s thermal tarp as he added, “But I got tired of waiting for you to wake up. Some exercise’ll be the thing to—” Cliffjumper lurched back as Brawn coughed suddenly. And coughed and coughed again. The noise was hollow and filled with static, based deep in his chest where it _hurt_. He tried to smother it with his hands, but movement sent a shock of pain to his backstrut and neck and made him cough harder.

“Whoa.” Before Brawn could do anything to stop him, Cliffjumper put a hand on his shoulder and exclaimed, “Primus! You’re _scalding!_ ” A beep that sounded much louder than it was preceded Cliffjumper’s next words: “MPO, come to quarters. Something’s wrong with Brawn.”

From the muffled sounds emanating from Cliff’s comm. link, that had brought the rest of Minibot Pace One out of their morning routines rather quickly. Groaning, Brawn curled further into himself and shivered weightily, unsure whether to feel relieved or humiliated.

“Brawn? What’s wrong with you?” Windcharger’s voice, uncomfortably close to his audial.

“Couldn’t’ve worded it better myself,” Gears snarked. “What’re your symptoms, Brawn? Don’t leave anything out or Ratchet could give you the wrong treatment and you could end up in stasis or worse.”

“Dun’ wanna be given treatment,” Brawn croaked, trying to muster something in his voice to alleviate their worry and failing. “S’nothing…Just need t’sleep it off…”

“Say that again,” Cliffjumper urged threateningly. “Say that again and I’ll drag you to the med bay myself, maybe even with a few more dents than before!”

At that idea, Brawn miraculously found it in himself to sit up, swinging his feet off the berth and trying to get energon flowing to his achy limbs. As he did so, he looked at each of his pace-mates in turn, trying to stare them down. When that didn’t work, he proclaimed, “Since I can’t recharge with all of you in my face, I…need a cube.” Just the thought of energon made him feel nauseous, but he didn’t want to mention that.

Bumblebee immediately started for the door, but Brawn called after him, using the sharp pace-leader tone again. “I’m gettin’ it myself!” With that he slid determinedly to the ground, but after the first few steps, the ground tilted, he started to slide sideways, and everything around him was smothered in blackness.

When he stirred again, he found himself in a berth that felt different from his own, but at least this one was cool. As soon as that thought computed, he started to shiver again, unable to suppress a whimper, which then set off a cough.

“I think he’s starting to wake up,” someone commented.

True to the prediction, Brawn peered sluggishly at the faces surrounding him. He was still in the pace’s quarters, having been transported to Gears’ berth, but whoever had spoken wasn’t any of his pace-mates. Who had said—? Oh.

“Hey, Ratchet,” Brawn greeted reluctantly. If his temperature weren’t already so high—even he could feel the heat radiating around him—he would have flushed in embarrassment. “They called you.”

“And I’m certainly glad they did,” Ratchet shot back sternly. “And you should be glad that as your physician I’m not allowed to smack you right now! What is so terrifying to you Minibots about coming to medical? It would spare you quite a lot of trouble if you sat through a two-klik inspection.”

“Nothing about the med bay is terrifying,” Huffer brushed off the question. “But I’ll tell you what _is_!” he added, his voice now shrill and shaky with panic as he turned back to Brawn. “You passed out! We couldn’t wake you up, Brawn, and you scared us halfway to deactivation!”

Brawn hesitated for a few kliks before muttering, “I’m sorry.”

That was met with stunned silence; rarely did anyone in their pace verbally apologize to each other. Usually they would _do_ something to make restitution and once the act was noticed, all would go back to normal. It was a testimony to how slagged up Brawn was feeling at the moment.

Refusing to let the moment go on any longer, lest awkwardness ensue, Brawn pleaded, “Ratchet, can you do something? M’ helm, m’ neck and backstrut, my—basically everything hurts. It’s hard to swallow. And it’s freezing in here.”

Almost before he had finished speaking, his thermal tarp reappeared, shoved _almost_ gently underneath his chin. Two others followed that and Brawn found himself surprisingly comforted by the scents of his pace-mates close. He was startled and despite the blankets immediately began shivering when a cold cube of energon was pressed into his hand. He nearly dropped it, but Windcharger’s hand shot out to steady his.

“You have what I call the Stimurus, something like the human virus influenza. We need to lower your temperature and get you hydrated,” Ratchet announced in response to Brawn’s wordless, teeth-chattering glower. “Drink that energon and then get some recharge. I’ll check in on you in a few joors and if that’s not finished, I _will_ smack you with a wrench, protocol be fragged.”

Brawn watched him leave before taking an experimental sip from the cube, wishing he had the energy to make a face of disgust. “Ew. What did he put in this?”

“Whatever it is, you heard him,” Bumblebee replied. “You don’t want to get wrenched, do you?”

“If he tries, he’ll have to go through us,” Cliffjumper cut in, but it was said with a soft undertone.

Brawn blinked, surprised into a laugh. It was nothing like his normal raucous amusement, more a huff of air and a relaxing of his eyebrows than anything else, but it seemed to put the others a bit more at ease. Privately wanting to be a good patient (for the sake of his pace-mates more than Ratchet), he took another few gulps of the cube before muttering, “Gross,” but almost instantly he started to relax. “Oh…”

Again Windcharger lunged, catching the cube before what remained of it sloshed everywhere. “Feel a little better?”

“Frag, yes.” As he curled further into the tarps, Brawn mumbled, “…think I know what he put in it now.” Before he could drift off, he thought of something else and half-opened his optics, unsure of when he had closed them. “You guys aren’t gonna freak out if I recharge now, right?”

There was a nanoklik of silence before his tarps were peeled off. Brawn made a fast U-turn to sulking, groaning wordlessly and fidgeting to get them back.

Then he felt someone else’s frame snuggle close to his left side, despite the feverish heat and the risk of the virus being contagious. Then there was movement on his other side, then near his waist, and finally his legs. It took a moment for him to realize that he was now the core of a pace pileup.

“I want my space,” Brawn complained even as he instinctively turned onto his back to accommodate everyone pressing against him.

“We know you do, but we want to know you’re staying alive, so we’ll have to compromise,” Huffer countered, looping an arm around his midsection, close to his slightly congested vents.

Finally giving up any pretense of independence, Brawn yielded to the position and let himself unwind. His awareness was going down the drain thanks to that spiked energon and his body felt miserable being squished and overly warm, but his spark was comforted, almost happy because of his pace-mates’ presence. For now, that was a great reason to stay put.


End file.
